Right: Bulb, the literally named table lamp that
launched Maurer into lighting

Looking back through Ingo Maurer’s oeuvre provokes several reactions. The first is that some of these lights are completely barking. The second is an emotional response: a feeling of sheer delight at the whimsy, the ingenuity, the
diversity, the delicate fragility. So many of Maurer’s
creations simply make the viewer smile and feel
somehow uplifted: the winged light bulb series
(beginning with the Birds Birds Birds chandelier
and table lamp in 1992), the chutzpah of Wo bist du,
Edison? (1997), with its hovering holographic bulb,
and the sheer exuberance and technical cleverness of
Porca Miseria! which exploded on to the lighting scene
in 1994. This is more than design, it’s art.

‘I have intense feelings for light and ephemeral ideas
and that was the subconscious base for my work,’
says Maurer. ‘I don’t have a strong intellect. Everything
comes from the stomach, from the heart, from
reflections or maybe even from something like an olive
tree in the wind.’
Born in Reichenhau, Germany, in 1932, he moved to
New York in 1960 (he lived in TriBeCa, where he still
has an apartment, for 35 years) but now works mainly
in his home country. He actually started out studying
typography and then trained as a graphic designer. He
made the transition into lighting in 1966, though he is a
little vague as to what prompted that. ‘I believe in hazard
– I like the word chance in French. I was all of a sudden
in the lamp business, I had no idea who Castiglioni
and all the other design heroes were. I just followed my
instinct. The people liked my design and I got a lot of
orders, but I did not know what producing meant.’
That first product was the somewhat literally named
Bulb table lamp, playing on the iconic shape of the
traditional GLS lamp. In fact, the basic light bulb has
become a ‘light’ motif throughout his career, cropping
up in everything from the famous feathered versions
through to the holograms, Loop and the quasi Mickey
Mouse silhouette of I Ricchi Poveri – Toto. Maurer,
needless to say, has been deeply disappointed by the
demise of the incandescent lamp.

‘I was very much opposed to the ban because Edison’slight bulb is based on fire and it is the last fire thatexists in that way,’ says Maurer. ‘Fire was the first lighton earth. In the meantime, of course, new techniquesEverything comes from thestomach, from the heart,from reflections or maybeeven from something likean olive tree in the wind’